Announcing this at a press conference on October 20, 2014 at New Delhi, the health minister, Dr Harsh Vardhan said that the brand new All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA) coming up at Jasola, Delhi, will admit the first batch of post-graduate students during the academic year 2015-16.

As per Dr Harsh Vardhan, "One of my first decisions was to approve the course content. I would like to see this develop into an institution comparable to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences-an AIIMS for Ayurveda."

The 200-bed, seven-storey referral hospital, also coming up within the 10-acre campus, will begin to admit patients within six months from now. AIIA will emerge as a Centre of Excellence dealing with fundamental research, drug safety evaluation, standardisation, quality control and scientific validation of Ayurveda medicines.

Elaborating on the format of the World Ayurveda Congress, Dr Vardhan said it will comprise 5 plenary sessions and 25 technical sessions on 15 research themes. In all, 750 scientific papers will be presented by scientists from India, Germany, Italy, USA, Argentina, Russia and many other countries.

The international delegate assembly, International Seminar on Medicinal Plants organised by the National Medicinal Plant Board and a Buyer -Seller meet organised by Pharmexcil will be the added attraction of the Congress.

The minister announced plans to make it a public event through the "Arogya Expo" which is envisaged as a "health mela" on Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha andHomoeopathy systems of medicine. This will be held at Hall No. 18 as a sideline event to the World Ayurveda Congress. About 500 pharma companies dealing in Ayurvedic medicines will be participating.